Acts Of Courage: Vaclav Havel's Life In The Theatre: Vaclav Havel's life in the Theater

by Dabrowski, Kristen

• ISBN13: 9781575253442
• ISBN10: 1575253445
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-04-30
• Publisher: Smith & Kraus Pub Inc

Summary

Vaclav Havel - dissident, human rights activist, essayist, philosopher, politician, founder, and president of the Czech Republic - is known throughout the world as a hero of the human rights movement and martyr for the "right to write" (he was imprisoned many times under communism in his country). But few of us in the West know that he is also his country's most famous dramatist. In fact, his presidency has eclipsed his playwriting. This book tells the dramatic story of his life in the theater during three dark decades under communism, and the extreme risks that he and many others took to put on his plays. The book also discusses his ten full-length plays and eight one-acts - plays that not only tell the story of his country but also helped to change it. For those of us who work in the theater, his story is a powerful and moving one about what it means to be a playwright, a story wherein writing for the theater is an act of courage.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiv
Prologue	1	(4)
PART I THE FIFTIES: THE EDUCATION OF A WRITER
Scene One	5	(2)
1951--1955: The Education of an Outsider	7	(10)
1956: A Young Writer Makes His Debut	17	(4)
1957--1959: A Soldier Plays	21	(4)
PART II THE SIXTIES: ENTER VACLAV HAVEL
1960: Learning the ABCs	25	(4)
1960: The Playwright Finds a Home	29	(10)
1963: The Garden Party	39	(10)
1963--1964 in Prague: A Cultural Awakening	49	(2)
1964: A Season of the Absurd at the Theatre on the Balustrade	51	(4)
1964: Marriage	55	(2)
1964: Anticodes	57	(2)
1965: The Memorandum	59	(10)
1965--1968: From the Balustrade to the Theater of Politics	69	(2)
1965--1968: The Increased Difficulty of Concentration	71	(8)
1968: Guardian Angel and A Butterfly on the Antenna	79	(7)
1968: Prague Spring	86	(2)
1968: New York Spring	88	(6)
1968: Summer	94	(5)
1968--1969: The Aftermath	99	(3)
The 1960s: Conclusion	102	(5)
PART III THE SEVENTIES: THE PLAYWRIGHT AT A CROSSROADS
1970: A Dark Decade Begins	107	(3)
1970--1971: The Conspirators	110	(3)
1970--1976: Mountain Hotel	113	(5)
1971--1974: Writers in Search of a Home	118	(7)
1972--1975: The Beggar's Opera	125	(19)
1974--1975: ``Second Wind''	144	(4)
1975: Audience and Vernissage	148	(12)
1976: A New Theatrical Home	160	(2)
1976--1979: Living in Truth	162	(3)
Charter 77	165	(13)
1978: Protest	178	(6)
The Vanek Plays: A ``Light on a Landscape''	184	(12)
PART IV THE EIGHTIES: FAR FROM THE THEATER
May 29, 1979--January 23, 1983: Serving the Sentence	196	(7)
1979--1983: Letters to Olga from ``the Convicted Vaclav Havel''	203	(18)
1983: Mistake	221	(1)
1984: Largo Desolato	222	(19)
1985: Temptation	241	(10)
1986: ``Far from the Theater''	251	(10)
1987: Redevelopment	261	(7)
1988: Tomorrow We'll Start It Up	268	(7)
1988--1989: Prologue for a Revolution	275	(7)
November--December 1989: Writing and Staging a Revolution	282	(6)
Opening Night	288	(2)
PART V THE NINETIES AND BEYOND: POLITICS AND THEATER AS ONE
Curtain Up	290	(3)
1990--1992: Havelmania	293	(11)
Return to the Theatre on the Balustrade	304	(3)
The Coming of Age of the Theatre on the Road	307	(12)
1993: After Havelmania	319	(3)
2000: In Search of a New Play by Vaclav Havel	322	(4)
2003: Havel and the Theater Today	326	(3)
King Lear	329	(3)
PART VI EPILOGUE
I Think About You a Great Deal: Albee, Beckett, Miller, Pinter, Stoppard	332	(17)
Homes Away from Home	349	(19)
PART VII CURTAIN CALL
Encore	368	(3)
A Legacy	371	(15)
A Place in Twentieth-Century Drama	386	(14)
More Than a Body of Dramatic Work	400	(5)
Final Bow	405	(2)
Production Photos	407	(8)
Appendix A: Chronology of Plays	415	(3)
Appendix B: Dramatis Personae and Other Names	418	(12)
Appendix C: Czech Pronunciation	430	(1)
Selected Bibliography	431	(7)
Notes	438	(33)
Index	471	(20)
The Author	491